Irish Wonders: The Ghosts, Giants, Pooka, Demons, Leprechawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other Marvels of the Emerald IsleMcAnally, D. R. (David Russell)
General
Irish Wonders: The Ghosts, Giants, Pooka, Demons, Leprechawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other Marvels of the Emerald Isle
"’No Kevin,’ says Satan, a-throwin’ himself on Kevin’s breast, wid both
arrums round his neck, ’I’ll never lave ye,’ lettin’ an to cry an’ dhrop
tears an the face o’ the blessed saint.
"It’s no aisy matther to say no to a woman anyhow, aven to an ugly woman,
but when it’s a good-lookin’ wan that’s in it, an’ she axin’ ye wid her
arrums round ye an’ the crystal dhrops like that many dimunds fallin’ from
her eyes that look at ye like shtars through a shower av rain, begob it’s
meself that doesn’t undhershtand why Saint Kevin didn’t give up at wanst,
an’ so he wud if he hadn’t been the blessed saint that he was. But he was
mightily flusthered, an’ no wondher, an’ stud there wid his breast
hayvin’, a-shtrivin’ to resist the timptation to thrade a crown in heaven
fur a love on airth.
"’Lave this place, Kevin,’ says the tempther, ’an’ come wid me, we’ll go
away an’ be happy together forever,’ an’ wid that word, an’ as the fate av
the saint was trimblin’ in the balances, the holy angels o’ God stud
beside him, an’ wan whishpered in his ear that the Kathleen he loved
before was a pure, good woman, an’ that she’d ’a’ died afore she’d come to
him that-a-way.
"’No,’ says he, wid sudden shtrength. ’It’s not Kathleen that’s in it, but
an avil sper’t. God’s prisence be about us! Get you gone Satan an’ sayce
to throuble me,’ an’ that minnit the blessed saint jumped up aff the
ground an’ wid his two feet gev the owld rayprobate a thunderin’ kick in
the stummick, an’ when he doubled up wid the pain an’ fell back an’
clapped his hands together on the front av him, Saint Kevin gev him
another in his rare, axin’ yer pardon, that sent him clane over the clift,
wid Saint Kevin gatherin’ shtones an’ flingin’ thim afther him wid all the
might that was in him. So the minnit the saint kicked him the very foorst
kick, Kathleen disappeared, an’ there was the owld black Belzebub
a-tumblin’ over, an’ fallin’ down to the lake, holdin’ his stummick an’
thryin’ hard to catch himself wid his wings afore he’d hit the wather. But
he did by the time he got to the bottom an’ flew away, bellerin’ worse nor
a bull with a dog hangin’ to his nose, so that all the monks woke wid
fright, an’ cudn’t go to shlape agin till they’d said a craydo an’ five
aves apiece, but the blessed saint set be his bed a-sayin’ his baids the
rest o’ the night wid a pile o’ shtones convaynient to his hand fur fear
the divil ’ud come back. But Satan flew over an that hill an’ rubbed
himself before an’ behind too, where the saint had kicked him, an’ didn’t
go back, for he’d enough o’ the saint fur that time. But he was mightily
vexed, an’ not to lose the chance fur to do some mischief before he’d go
away, he pulled down all the walls that the poor monks had built that day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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